


Die a Dawn

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-12
Updated: 2009-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sometimes, just before she fell asleep, Kara would try to remember dying. All she ever remembered was the light.</i> [Lee/Kara, minor Adama/Roslin]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Die a Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> For **lyricalviolet** , as offered. Thanks for years of awesome beta work and support! Set during Daybreak. I just pretend this belongs there as missing scenes. Thanks to **lotus79** for beta – sorry about making you cry.

Die a Dawn  
by **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

 _Once upon a time, night fell on Twelve Colonies._

 _It took a long time to find morning again._

II

This is a habitable planet, and Lee lets himself marvel at it. It's green, and blue, and beautiful from space. Up close, it's grass and sky again, and where they've landed is sunset.

Sunset, the last of the light catching Kara as she walks over and stands next to him, just watching with him.

A raptor has been sent back to the rendezvous point, surveys are being conducted, few tents have been erected and right now, there's only waiting to do.

"I can't believe you found a planet," he tells her, but she doesn't smile at it. "About time we had some luck. I think we're owed a lifetime of it now, don't you?"

"Maybe you'll get it," she says, and it sounds almost like a blessing.

"The Fleet should be here tomorrow," Lee remarks after a moment, watching Bill help Laura out of the raptor so gently. Even from here, he can see the look on her face, like a sun turned to his father.

"Tomorrow," Kara says absentmindedly, her eyes on the horizon.

"We've set up some tents for the night. Dad's taking one. We could..." He trails off a little, and she finally, finally looks at him. "I haven't seen a dawn in so long."

"Dawn," she says faintly, and her eyes are strangely bright. "Aren't you tired of the sun yet, Apollo?"

"Not as long as it feels like this," he says, and her laughter sounds strangely sad.

II

 _Among those who survived, marooned in the dark of space, there was a girl turned woman turned fighter turned wife turned lost love turned just lost, dead in space._

 _Turned angel._

II

Lee stops by his father's tent first, but doesn't stay long. Laura is looking half a ghost, his father is looking haunted, and the caresses between them are light and almost insubstantial, but still lingering.

They're going to say goodbye, and Lee hopes he never has to.

Kara is waiting inside his tent as he ducks in, and she seems to catch something in his face, taking one step forward before stopping herself.

"I don't know how Dad does it," he says. "Not losing his mind when losing her little by little."

Too late he thinks of Sam, and Kara turns away a little, the distance between them suddenly feeling like too much space.

"I just mean I'd prefer it to be fast, rather than prolonged. If I had to make the choice. You know?"

"Yes," she says.

II

 _One day, Kara found her own body and knew she was dead._

 _She just didn't know what else she was._

II

"Sam isn't coming back," Kara tells him, drinking from the bottle slowly. "Whatever is left of him, isn't him."

"What are you going to do?"

"Let him go," she says, and there is grief in her voice. There is also relief, and something he can't quite catch. He watches her fingers drum a little against the bottle, a rhythm that almost sounds familiar.

"I'm sorry," he offers. He is, as she was for Dee, because they haven't quite frakked each other up enough to lose compassion.

They have frakked each other up enough to just lose, though, and when Kara moves to kiss him, it feels strangely like a surrender.

II

 _She had a purpose, they all kept telling her. End of line. Harbinger of death. Warnings, she thought. She didn't yet understand. Death. End._

 _There can't be new beginnings and new life without._

II

Sun gone, and the tent is dark with no light, leaving Lee to trace skin by feel rather than sight. By lips sometimes too, and Kara sighs as he finds a spot at her collarbone. Her hands are firmly groping his ass, and she laughs a little when he makes a slightly in indignant noise.

She doesn't laugh when he dips his fingers below her waistline, then she just lifts her hips, welcoming the touch.

He can't see her face, but he does feel the heat in her cheeks as he presses his face against hers, and he imagines they're blazing.

II

 _Sometimes, just before she fell asleep, Kara would try to remember dying._

 _All she ever remembered was the light._

II

He doesn't tell her he loves her, not this time. Not because it isn't still true – it is – but because her lips stay on his, nibbling, pressing, sliding across his, and soon, he has no breath anyway.

Her nails scrape across his back every time he moves; he keeps one hand on a breast, caressing until she arches into him and her breath into his mouth is a long, shuddering exhale.

When she falls back, he falls with her, biting into her shoulder as he comes.

II

 _One day, Kara played a song with stars and found a planet._

 _As if she was always meant to._

II

He isn't entirely surprised to wake alone.

The night is fading, dark turning to grey, and it's a peculiar not-quite-light as he steps out. It's in between, and he finds Kara standing between his tent and his father's, looking almost not there.

"Hey," he says lightly.

'You make a habit of being gone in the morning,' he doesn't say, but he does think it.

"You wanted to see a dawn," she says. "You're almost too late, Apollo."

"I'm just on time," he protests, and he thinks maybe, maybe for once the time is just right. In the corner of his eye, he can even see his father, Laura in his arms, and eyes on the horizon.

First sunset with his family, and he closes his eyes to the dawn.

II

 _They called the planet Earth, for the Earth they should have had, and there will be millions of mornings waiting for them on it._

 _Not for Kara. Bring a morning. Don't stay for the day. The dawn never can._

II

First sunset with his family is last sunset, Lee learns.

His father leaves with Laura, and Lee knows there won't be a return. Laura will die, and his father will grieve in solitude and pass away eventually, and whatever comes after, Lee can't imagine them not joined at the hip again.

It's good. It's good to be joined at the hip, and he looks at Kara and thinks only of good things.

That's when she tells him she can't stay.

II

 _Angel, some called her. They weren't quite right._

 _She still brought the light._

II

Lee has a long time to try to understand.

He climbs a mountain, and thinks about Baltar's DNA findings. He drinks from a clear stream, and considers the impossibility of just vanishing in a field. He rests in moonlight, and tries to understand her final words. He sleeps, and dreams of her death again.

She died, he knows. She died and came back in the form of Kara, and whatever more she was, he doesn't care. He cares she was Kara, and he doesn't let her go.

He doesn't have to.

When he closes his eyes to the sunrise, the light never stops feeling like her caress.

II

 _Come a dawn._

 _Die a dawn._

 _Come the dawn again._

 _As it's meant to._

II

FIN


End file.
